not very long ago that was a wedge issue bob dole was using against bill clinton. i think we've made progress in some other areas. clearly be done and we have the deniers of global warming, but we're reducing the amount of oil that we import. there is progress in that regard. on the other hand, there's been, i think, retrogression in the recognition of two of the great accomplishments of america in the 20th century, with social security and medicare. before those two, we did not have the possibility for the average older person who wasn't wealthy to have a decent existence in retirement. we now have that. i'm sorry to see that pulled back. there's also an international event, for the first time, and i think we have to recognize this. from 1940 to 1990 we had very heavily armed, very bad people threatening our very existence as a society. even though we may have exaggerated that a little bit at the end. we don't have that anymore. we have murderous thugs and terrorists but they're not the nazis or communists. they don't threaten our very existence. we have an abilit